A visit by district police officers after filing a complaint to prosecutor’s office

Police officers in Mahilou visit the homes of opposition activists ahead of silent protests. They explain their visits with the need to have a preventive conversation.

A district police officer visited Valadar Tsurpanau yesterday. The activist says the policeman tried to figure out who lives in the flat with Valadar, Radio Svaboda reports.

“He explained he was checking who lives in his district. Then he asked if I wore a reflective tape on my clothes. I said it was my right to wear it or not. Then I asked him not to bother me with ridiculous questions and he replied he had another important question. “I need to have a preventive conversation with you concerning unauthorized public events and participation in them. I was ordered,” he said. I answered he should send me a summons and then we would talk,” Tsurpanau said.

On July 18, the activist filed a complaint to the regional prosecutor’s office asking to fulfill the norm of the Belarusian constitution in Mahilou.

“I enlisted the facts of mass attacks on people. Unknown men in plain clothes hunted for people. In fact, it is imposing martial law in certain districts of Mahilou. I demanded that the prosecutor take measures to bring constitutional order in the city. I do not rule out that my complaint was a reason for police’s visit. I also wrote down my complaints in the complaints’ book in the Leninski district police department. Police officers refused to give information about the people detained on July 3 and 6. I was not allowed to enter the police call centre, but I managed to come in and wrote down my complaints. I think they are a reason for the police to visit me,” the activist is convinced.

A district police officer also visited Hkrystsina Shatsikava, a human rights activist from “Nash Dom” civil campaign. She was asked the same questions as Tsurpanau: who lives in the flat with her. The policeman tried to hold a preventive conversation, but the activist demanded to send her a summons.